In Fractions of Moments
by charmingly-holly
Summary: Everything is in fractions of moments now. The hesitance before one speaks, the hitch just before one steps through a doorway. There is a fraction of a moment when the knife is poised hanging in the air before...


**_A/N: This is a story I wrote on a whim just today. It's a bit different, and when I posted it earlier, I thought it was missing something._**

**_THANKS BE TO WONDERFUL REVIEWERS!_**

**_I sent out a plea for help, and ya'll rose to the occassion beautfically. snochik21, ProfessorSpork, SarcasmRox, and Gryffens all deserve cake and large piles of prizes. Thanks ya'll, for pointing out the glaringly obvious that my eyes just couldn't see._**

**_Anywho, I think I have it fixed for the most part. I'm much happier with it this time around, and I think my metaphor might make a bit more sense :P_**

**_Still though, if I've still missed something glaringly obvious, don't hesitate to inform. _**

In Fractions of Moments

_For the reviewers mentioned to your up,  
Because they made this story move to a level just above crap  
And to my new hat,  
Who I've discovered is a wonderful addition to my brain. _

She's not quite sure why she's crying but she thinks it might be Crookshanks.

He isn't supposed to be in her room at all, and when he comes in she wants to shoo him away but finds that she can't because she remembers that Hermione has left him and he looks at her like that's what he's expecting of her. So instead she stares at him tremulously for a few moments before scooping him up to cradle him in her lap and cry silently into his thick orange fur. He only purrs slightly in response and she can tell he'd like to jump away now that she's taken the fun out of trying to provoke her. But he stays because she grips him tightly and even cats know when humans are in desperate need of a companion.

She knows it's strange to be crying because of a look that a cat has given her, and she knows she should let herself think for once about all the things that look brought to the surface of her mind. But, for the moment, she is content to only think that Crookshanks has made her cry and now he's purring in her lap and her mirror is wheezing a bit in the corner and reminding her that time has not stopped when it certainly feels as if it has. And that is all there is to it.

Even though she knows there is so much more.

He'd looked at her like he'd been expecting it. It was the same look her father had worn the day they'd failed to find them in their rooms; it was the same look Bill had worn when Fenrir had lunged towards him in that dreadful battle, his teeth bared and his faced fixed into a grotesque and bloodthirsty snarl; it was the same look she had worn that day by the lake when Harry had turned to her amidst the hundreds of grief-stricken faces with that grim determination set in his jaw and that inexplicable emotion in his eyes.

When she was born, they had expected her to be a boy. Six boys before her, and she was kicking her mother more fiercely than any of the others ever had. It was quite a surprise when she had popped out a girl. It was unexpected. _She_ was unexpected.

She sits on her bed now, in her room on the third floor of the Burrow, and wonders if this is the reason no one expects anything of her. They smile at her now and then. They glance in her direction when they are talking in lowered voices about things she doesn't need to hear. They pat her on the head as they pass by on their way to more important endeavors. They go to her when they need to get away from it all and make small talk about the weather and the scones she's brought them and her hair.

But she is what they don't know they need. She is unexpected.

They read the paper every morning and are never shocked when another Dark Mark slashes across the front page and words such as 'death' and 'disappearance' and 'torture' are splashed about the page as if someone has filled a salt shaker with them and shook it over the presses. The bad is expected to get worse and the luck is expected to run dry. And when her brother and her best friend and the boy who was so much more disappeared with nothing more than a note with the message, "We love you all. We're sorry," no one had been surprised. It hadn't been unexpected.

But it slices at her like a sharp and glinting knife running along her skin in patterns of fire and finely crafted serpents. She can't pretend like they can. She can't pretend like everything should be expected. She is not numb to this war.

Eventually her tears stop flowing so freely and instead only occasionally slide to the end of an eyelash to hang there for a fraction of a moment before dripping off and landing in the thick orange fur of the cat curled in her lap. After only a little while longer they stop altogether. She hates that she's cried now because no one else ever cries and she'll have to put make-up on her eyes to hide the blotches and the redness and the confession.

She wishes everyone would just stop pretending.

Everything is in fractions of moments now. The hesitance before one speaks, the hitch just before one steps through a doorway. There is a fraction of a moment when the knife is poised hanging in the air before it is brought down heavily onto the flesh of its victim.

There is a fraction of a moment when she thinks it's audible, the blade slicing through the air.

There is a fraction of a moment, she thinks, when everyone else hears it too before they pretend it isn't unexpected.

There is a fraction of a moment when she isn't the only one who feels the blade running along her skin.

The powder in the small black disk now resting in her hand is running low. She wonders if this even matters. Underneath it all she looks the same as the rest who have already given up on normality. She's not sure why she hasn't followed the trend.

Crookshanks leaps from her lap and rubs his body languidly between her legs and along her bedpost. He glances back at her fleetingly before slipping out the partially opened door and disappearing quietly down the hall.

She pads to the wheezing mirror in the corner, clicking the disk in her hand open as she moves. She rubs the circular pad against the slivers of pressed powder rimming the edges of the compact gently before reaching up and dabbing it softly beneath her eyes. She clicks it closed and slips it beneath a graying t-shirt in her dresser drawer.

_There's a fraction of a moment when the knife is poised… _

She stops for a moment, her hand stilling on the handle of her dresser drawer and her eyes glancing back to the mirror now devoid of her reflection. It shows her a schoolbag lying abandoned against the opposite wall. Cobwebs thread across its surface. The corner of a forgotten book peeks out from beneath the flap. It's cover is green.

Harry, she knows, is expecting to die.

Her hand shifts on the small, smooth, worn wooden knob of her drawer, and she is gently pulling it open and reaching back inside before she realizes she's made a decision. She extracts the graying t-shirt and places it on the bed beside her. She calmly piles three more shirts, two thick Weasley sweaters, a pair of jeans, a thick pair of woolen pants, and Charlie's heavy old traveling cloak beside. She adds to the pile three pairs of warm socks and a few extra undergarments.

_The blade is hanging suspended in the air…_

She shakes the cobwebs loose from her bag and allows the thick tome inside to tumble onto her bed. She expands the inside with a quick flick of her wrist and neatly places the pile of garments beside her into the bag. She pulls a hat over her head, slips Charlie's traveling cloak over her shoulders, and tugs a pair of gloves onto her hands. She slings her bag over her shoulder.

The stairs creak and groan as she flits down them, but she isn't worried because everyone is used to the noises of the night. She slips into the pantry quietly and adds a few jars of preserves, a loaf of bread, and a couple cans of soup to her bag. She murmurs a lightening charm in the dark and then steps out into the kitchen. The door across the room is shut against the cold outside.

_It's audible, the blade slicing through the air…_

Her hand is gripping the cool iron of the door handle, and her gloved thumb is pressing slowly down against the lever that will click the door open. She closes her eyes briefly against the tears threatening to fall and wishes she didn't have to put the woman asleep upstairs through so much more pain.

This is her role in the game. She is to be unexpected. She is to be the knife.

She hears the click of the door handle and feels a relief of pressure beneath her thumb. There is a sadness and a determination in her eyes as she opens them and tugs open the door. She does not hesitate before she steps over the threshold and into the wind. She turns her back to the rising sun and travels towards where she knows it will set because that is where she had seen their silhouettes disappear all those months ago.

_It carves patterns in their skin, the blade does, of flames and serpents and rivers run dry…_

If you cannot feel the pain you cannot fight the battle. If you cannot fight the battle you cannot win the war. If you cannot win the war then the world is lost forever.

This is her role in the game.

There is a fraction of a moment when the knife is poised hanging in the air before it is brought down heavily upon the flesh of its victim.

There is a fraction of a moment when it is audible, the blade slicing through the air.

There is a fraction of a moment when Molly Weasley is sure she should have expected this. She has lost her breath. A knife is carving patterns into her skin.

A knife is descending a world no longer numb.

Crookshanks purrs in the darkness, his eyes gleam with nonexistent light. It disappears in a fraction of a moment and you are left wondering if Ginny Weasley was ever there at all.

**_A/N: Review, loo-hoos! And tell me what you think :)_**

**_Oh, and you maybe can expect a chapter or two for Cheese Wheels and the next chapter of Newton this winter hols. This is a maybe since they don't seem to want to be written, but I'm hoping. Maybe if we all hope really really hard it will happen. So let's hope, ya?_**

**_You are allowed (only because it cannot be prevented) to mention Cheese Wheels or Newton in your review for this story. However, if you do not mention what I've written to your up at all, I may have to come after you with a larg capibara and a heavy blunt object.  
_**

**_Also, if you found this story terribly confusing, I have three things you should do. Either 1) Open your mind a bit and see what happens, 2) Read it again (preferably with the open mind), or 3) Just tell me I screwed up on this story :P_**

**_-h  
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**_And PS: If anyone knows how to make those lines like I've tried to make by pressing the key without pressing the key, feel free to tell me, k? _**


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